Page 40 of Beyond Protection
"What's going on?" Ma asked. "Michael said—"
"New message." I showed her the phone.
She went pale. Then angry. "Someone was watching my house? Following you from my house?"
"We're handling it, Ma," Michael said.
"Handling it how?"
"I've got calls in to SPD," Eamon said. "And I'm vetting private security for additional surveillance. We're also changing all protocols—routes, timing, locations."
"What about Mac's training?" Marcus asked.
"We'll figure something else out."
I looked at the photo again. The time stamp. The angle. The clinical observation about stress markers and proximity damage.
Removal scheduled.
They'd been close enough to photograph us. Close enough to count the seconds from when we got out of the car to when we entered the building.
Close enough that they could've done anything.
But they hadn't. They didn't want to damage me.
They wanted to remove Eamon.
And then they wanted to take me.
"We need to talk," I said. "All of us."
Michael nodded. "Kitchen table. Now."
We filed in. Ma put coffee on without asking.
As we sat around the scarred table that had survived forty years of McCabe crises, I looked at Ma—started to say something. Stopped.
"What?" she asked.
"I shouldn't have come here." The words came out hollow. "I shouldn't have brought this to your house and your family—"
"Stop." Ma's voice cut through. "You think we don't know what it costs you to bring your trouble to our door?"
She reached across the table and took my hand. "Sweetheart, you've been carrying things alone since you were a boy. Since your daddy died and you decided the world needed perfect Mac McCabe and nothing less." Her grip was fierce. "But that's not how family works. You carry ours, we carry yours. That's the deal. You don't get to opt out because you think you're too much trouble."
"Ma—"
"Over my dead body," she said. "Over my dead body does anyone take you from this house. You understand me?"
Her eyes were fierce. "You're not too much, sweetheart. You've just been too alone."
I nodded.
Marcus put one hand on hers and the other on mine. Michael was already on his phone. Eamon watched me with an expression I was learning to read—it meant he'd burn the world down before he let anyone take me.
The McCabes were circling their wagons.
My phone buzzed again.
